


The Night of July 7th.

by orphan_account



Category: Dreamcatcher (Korea Band), SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dystopia, Fantasy, Heavy Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Science Fiction, Simulated reality, complicated but ive actually made it make some sense, i am not shipping svnt and dc guys, ill be adding ships in later but not right now, memory confusion, not everyone is a main character, refences to raunchy stuff, siyeon is pratically minghao's mum now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23431234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Fully aware that the world's days are limited before solar flares strike, instead of attempting to find another planet, the goverment tries a different strategy.The existence of alternate worlds, similar to their own has always been known to the people, when things fall  rhough the cracks inbetween.The plan is, as it stands to move the population to the safest one known to them, before their own explodes.A couple of snags annoyingly stood in the way: they don't know which one to chose, there were countless and sperating them was not easy.Oh and they hadn't fully figured out how to do that  fully, and only  a select few were compatitible with what they did.It was unpredictable.
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Yoon Jeonghan, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	1. Fuck I'm not qualified for this.

Siyeon hated bay duty.

She only had to do it twice a month. Every morning of the 1st, and then the night shift of the 7th, so it seemed maybe to an outsider like an easy task, just something to sigh about before begrudgingly completing, and returning to one's normal daily schedule with ease. Maybe one would be particularly pedantic and ask why they weren’t required to do more than such a measly period of time. After all, they were just sitting in a ward, right? Nothing menial.

Every agent had the same hours. No more than 12 hours a month, no more than 8 at a time. They valued their agents' sanity, in the same way an army values its nurses to patch up its soldiers- so they are fit for duty. Especially when numbers are so limited.

Her seat, the matron's seat, was located at the far end of the bay, overlooking the two lines of beds, hew view for the evening. Staring at the erratically flashing blue lights located at the foot of each bed, hoping that none of the agents were epileptic. But it was so much better to stare at the lights, at the machinery, listen to the whirring of the ventilators, than to look at the faces of the souls that lay between the sheets.

_They’re just dreaming. They are saving us._

The words she reminded herself, the words that were imprinted in a vibrant purple on the otherwise empty desk in front of her. She supposed they might be there for emotional support, but they sounded too mechanical, the same thing you’d find on a business card. Just because they were dreaming, that didn’t mean they were okay.

The only other thing located in the emotionless room, hung over the door.

A singular sign, angled letters.

_Batch XVI: Agents I-XII._

Apparently that was all they seemed to care to know about everyone that lay in here. What number guinea pig they happened to be. For the greater good sure, you could dress it up and give it all the ribbons and glitter you wanted, but that was what they truly were.  
She twiddled her own ID badge between her fingers. The picture had been taken six months ago, when the agents had gone under and she was called in for bay duty. A single shot against a white, blank background. Do not smile, she had been told. Obviously it was for authentication reasons but Siyeon could not help but laugh at the irony of that. There was no time for smiles, and Siyeon knew that it wasn’t just taken for the ID, these were also the pictures that were broadcasted internationally if any regretful complications occurred when she herself went under. Something that was scheduled to happen in 3 months.

The thought of that played her heartstrings like a sword upon a harp.

The night, that everyone had gone under, seven months ago, the first of Batch XVI to do their service, was forever going to be a scar inside her. She never wanted to relive something like that again.

She had been three years old, and all she had done was have one godforsaken dream. Just one dream. That’s all it had taken. Just one dream, and suddenly she was sitting in the village hall, hugging her doll close as nameless figures in black suits had their hands on her shoulders, with empty reassurance, tears in her parents eyes as they hugged her. Then there was a ride in the strange big black car, then suddenly she was in a sky bird, looking enthusiastically over the beautiful ocean, something she’d never seen before, then a bus, riding through the brightest city in the universe, their universe anyway. The city she’d never left since. Then the people in black had brought her before a woman, lips as red as the blood spilled on her hands. Who’d shaken her hand, nodded at the people. “Take her to the others.”  
It had just been one dream. One dream too many.

She caved. Her eyes betrayed her as they flickered over to their faces.

Every other time she’d been on duty, she’d been strong, she’d been resilient. She would only look at their screens, check their vital levels, monitor their consciousness. Professional. Clinical. Strictly her job, her duty.

Maybe she missed them a little bit more today. Maybe the fact that the only warm human comfort she’d gotten her whole life had just been halved and put in mortal pearl was just a tinsy bit upsetting on this shift.

What had she really expected? Them to be smiling? For them to have twisted, tortured expressions that would haunt her?

She already knew what to expect. She had been told plain and clear in training. She’d had to recall it in countless written examinations, in practical assessments, in front of superiors, in front of juniors she tutored. _Agents under will exhibit limited to no physical expression or movement other than respiration, if an agent is exhibiting explicit signs of anything else, they are not fully induced, and you must alert your supervisor._

Her supervisor was a good 20 miles away. Aside from the guards, only one person was allowed inside the bay, always an agent, always on acting matron duty. She was isolated, alone, staring at the emotionless faces of people she loved, with no clue in heaven where they were, if they were okay or if they would come back at all, and if they did, they would come back the same. It was the most empty she’d felt since they left.

Preventing herself from falling asleep at the desk, for two reasons, one being that it was a neglection of duty and risked reduction of freedom privileges if the camera caught her, and the other being she was terrified someone slip too far while she selfishly dozed, she decided on a rather pointless sweep off the room.

She was maybe halfway down, when one monitor began to beep faster, aggressively.

Her heart contracted, as panic flooded her mind. Ration escaped her, she was so concentrated on her fears that she forgot that’s not actually the sound it would make if someone were to flatline. She found herself beside Minghao’s bed before she remembered running over, staring at his monitor in disbelief. His heart rate was 65 bpm. He...he was waking up.

She didn’t have time to be thankful. There wasn’t a protocol for this, she hadn’t answered any questions. Patients had woken up before the arranged date before hand, but that was due to one of several factors that they would have been alerted of way before her shift. They weren’t just supposed to suddenly gain consciousness out of nowhere. What button did she press? Who did she alert? She wasn’t allowed to call the guards, they didn’t have clearance for the actual bay and alerting them when she herself was not in immediate danger would have dire consequences. It would be a good twenty five minutes before anyone would even be here.

 _Oh fuck, I am not qualified enough for this,_ her last thought went out, almost like a prayer, before Minghao shot up in his bed, gripped her shoulders so tightly she felt he could bruise her bones, and began to scream.

_Of course, you will not be permitted to see the male agents until they are able to separate simulation from reality. It can take time to adjust, as you understand in the simulation they are under the impression that the simulation is reality, and have no memory of being an agent in their time within it._

When Siyeon had first learned this, she’d been so aggravated she snapped her pencil in half. What, her friends would be taken from her for months and even if they came back, she’d have to sit there unable to see them. It made more sense to her at present, and her fear for her shoulder blades slightly outweighed her joy, for the moment.

Minghaos eyes were filled with an unfamiliar fury as he shook her, yelling out in a language that she didn’t understand but she could figure, painfully, that he was probably asking where the hell he was...and who the hell she was. But his grip loosened, and the flames in his eyes dimmed.  
“S-Siyeon?” He asked, trembling. It has the same tone as when someone asks you a seemingly fresh question, and an answer comes to your lips, with absolutely no clue from whence that knowledge came. It was so bittersweet to hear her name called with such certain uncertainty.  
Finding the courage to nod, she sat down next to him, keeping her moves slow, hoping her common sense was enough to get her by. She was so not trained for this.

“Can you tell me the last thing you remember?” She tried. It was like removing a block in jenga, only if the tower came crashing down, so did someone’s mental stability and with it, probably her own.

A glimpse of himself blinked across his features. “I was lying here and then a man in white...a needle.”

Well that went better than she had expected. She nodded again. “Anything else?”

His features darkened. She had poked the tiger.

“He.. he…” His hands grasped as his hair, probably tight enough to pull it, as his eyes went just as wild, scanning the room at such a speed he couldn’t possibly be taking in anything, but they settled. They settled violently. The fire returned.

“That asshole shot me.”

He was staring directly at the bed to the left of him with an expression that stank of hate, the direct opposite of any way Minghao had ever ever looked at _Mingyu._  
Her instinct, ever inappropriate was almost to laugh. They had been warned that realities were odd, that they could sound bizarre and foreign, but never in her wildest imagination could she ever have imagined a reality where _Kim Mingyu_ was capable of hitting a tree branch without apologising, let alone actual murder.

However, evidently it had happened and any giggles Siyeon had were snuffed out by the very real agony Minghao was in. Her complaints about qualifications and training vanished. She had no idea what she was supposed to do, and although she begged for guidance, she knew she  
didn’t actually want it. How could she just hand over him in such torment over to some pair of uncaring ideas who would poke the wound further, keep him isolated, alone? She figured she’d rather have her organs harvested and made to dine on them.

“You’re not shot, see.” She spoke softer, softer. She delicately pried away his fingers clutching the left side of his chest. Thankfully, some instinct meant he trusted her, and his hands fell limply to his sides, staring down in disbelief at the clean, noticeably un-shot skin beneath him.

“I could...I could feel it.”

“It’s not real, it's alright.” That was technically true, but in the same way that a jaffa cake was technically a cake.

“I wasn’t the only one...J-Jeonghan...he was shot too.”

Oh no, this she did know about. This kind of thing was common. She remembered closing the tab in her dorm, staring at her wall for hours, dread poisoning her just from the thought of it.

One deep breath of sympathy taken, she placed her hands upon his shoulders, her smile not fake, but aching.

“Minghao listen to me, he’s not going to wake up here.”

He shook his head. “No, he was shot like me, he should, he should-what, do you think it didn’t, it didn’t kill him?”

“No.” Siyeon answered simply. There was no sugar coating this. “Minghao, you were in a simulation, you were all in a simulation. There aren’t any beds with a Jeonghan here, nor are there any agents with that name. That means... he was part of the simulation. He doesn’t exist.”  
Silence.  
“You’re safe.” She lied.


	2. Confusion and  a little bit of Vomit.

Siyeon was beginning to freak out a tad. The bay was supposed to be as secluded as humanly possible, located miles and miles away from the city and any of the satellite villages. Personal limited, everything tracked electronically through the mainframe with backup after backup after back up. All of this because it was single handedly the most important operation in the world. For the same reason she was so invaluable, why all the agents were, especially the females.

But the seclusion was necessary, and thought through, she’d learnt every protocol, every instruction for everything that could possibly happen while on shift.

Apparently not, but still, according to what she did actually know, when you contacted headquarters asking for assistance, you were definitely supposed to get an answer. The only reason systems would have gone offline would be if headquarters had somehow had a power outage, and that wasn’t how it worked. This was sabotage. That or their fuel was failing them. She was struggling to pick which one she’d rather it was. Their systems were supposed to be unhackable, but hey guess there’s a first for anything. But if their systems were hacked the whole operation could collapse, if classified information leaked, if anything vital was wiped, records that were essential for the project that for some reason didn’t exist physically because of their arrogance.

If their fuel was failing, so was the city. The City, unofficially called Nightshade Port (saying that i training was a rookie mistake), was not powered like the rest of the world was. Every so often, the border’s between realities managed to blur a little, and little glimpses would fall through in the brief seconds. Things would land where they shouldn’t be, even if as simple as a single pebble among countless others identical to itself. They would whisper to passers by, and there were some, some that could hear them. Some would immediately reach out and grab them, and would later be found usually by a geiger counter after a medium localised earthquake, and be whisked away promptly though the violet gates. Others fought, and the whispers would follow them to their dreams. Sometimes they were old enough to understand, to know, they kept their mouths shut, not tell a soul, not even the wind, because he could carry words like he could leaves. But some were children, who would awaken the household crying about all the wicked and wonderful that visited when their eyes were closed. Then the figures would come, take the children, take the artifacts, plug the latter into the mainframe and do almost the same to the former. The artifacts were drenched with something so much better than uranium, it was their salvation. They needed them to project the simulations mainly, one artifact for each reality, but that was only their primary purpose. It powered the roads, the lights, the heating that ran under the concrete, the streetlights, the hard drives, the phone lines. It ran through the island's core and grew and grew, absorbing all it could, through every parth, every soul, every heartbeat. It saturated and intoxicated the city that never saw daybreak.

So if they were somehow, for the first time having a fueling crisis, the whole city was in turmoil. Either way, the likelihood of a system reboot was scarily high. And if that happened, more than just Minghao would wake up. And she’d be alone.

She stood, hunched over the panel, trying again and again and again to get some kind of response. Literally any indication that they had heard her, and the situation wasn’t a priority would have been sufficient, so she just kept sending alert after alert, on the wishful hypothesis that if she spammed enough someone was bound to notice her, even if just to tell her to shut the hell up. She’d been at it for, jesus christ, two hours, with no response.

Mingaho’s fingers were still loosely gripped around her wrist as he waited behind her, silently.

Her other hand’s fingers tore through her hair, frustration bubbling over inside of her.

“My shift ends in half an hour, maybe whoever is on next might actually show up, perhaps give some insight into whatever is happening.” She sighed, turning around to give MInghao a little smile, although she wasn’t aware what comfort it would bring.

His face was not the opposite of a smile, not its parallel either, nor was it blank. It just seemed to look like a smile could have once shone in its place, but such a thing had never ghosted upon his lips.

“Then, then you’ll leave?”

Oh. Is that what she was planning? Just hand the problem over to another agent, possibly not even one from her batch, and go back to her dorms. Was she planning on running back to headquarters, asking where her skills could help in whatever crisis they applied to? It was irrelevant, requardles son what her plan may have been, her mind was made up in the instance she heard Minghao’s voice quiver and that tortured expression staring back at her.

“No, I’ll stay.”

His mind was so scattered, his fingers trembled against her skin, his eyes were rapid as they scanned the room, more vulnerable than she had seen him, not since he was a child. At least even wrenched miles away from his family, his home, his language he had known who he was, everything was wrong, nothing made sense but his head was his, untampered. God knew how fast, if he would find his footing on his own life again. But one thing was, that he did seem to trust her. It gave Siyeon a responsibility, and as terrifying as it was, she couldn’t call it unwelcome.

He actually smiled, and she knew everything was worth it.

They sank back down onto the bed, her eyes still occasionally dancing over to the panel, for a chance of a new light flashing. Not much was said, only small mutterings and that name again, his hands still occasionally tracing his chest, holding it tight as if blood was spilling from it, only to find his fingers perfectly, as he stared at them with abhorrent confusion.

Three beeps, someone was entering.

Minghao clutched her forearm again.

Hurried footsteps, scraping the snow from their boots.

“Shh, it’s just an agent, It’s someone you know” Well, at least someone they vaguely knew. It wouldn't be any of their seniors, agents only worked on their peers or those above them. Having said that, there was clearly some kind of emergency, this could be literally anyone if they had been given clearance. She was clinging onto hope, purely relying on the fact that it was time to change shifts.

The sound of the touchpad authenticating ID

And there Minji stood, eyebrows raised, staring at Minghao. Siyeon was unsure if she’d ever been so densely elated to see Minji, even in the literal two decades she’d known her, she probably could have kissed her, in better circumstances.

Maybe she would have, if not for the cacophony that followed.

First it was just one machine, flashing orange lights, then another, then heart monitors, memory banks, groaning-who was groaning? The answer was at least five of them, stirring from their slumber, now someone was awake, people were groaning. Beds squeaking as they sat up, confused murmurs, the sound of her own footsteps as she ran to a bed, MInji’s questions that blurred into the frenzy, more voices, more machines- the sound of vomit splattering against the metal floor.

Shit.

She looked Minji in the eye, sharing a thought that basically translated as “i know as much as you do” before they both hurriedly scrammed.

Only two of them had fully awoken, Seokmin, who was currently not capable of speech as he lurched over the side of his bed, seeming completely unaware of anyone or anything around it, probably the ether, and Wonwoo, who rather on the contrary had managed to get of his bed, stand upright, and walk soundly over to Minghao’s bed, and pull the sobbing boy into his chest.

She felt Minji stand beside her, as they watched in fascination.

“Minghao said he was shot in there, by Mingyu.” She told her softly, leaning towards her, careful to not let the boys hear.

She almost heard Minji’ internal double take. “MINGYU?” She asked, way louder than intended.

Wonwoo’s head raised at this, his expression unreadable.

Siyeon gulped. She was unsure why, she’d never in her life felt afraid of Wonwoo, if anything it had been the other way around, she remembered snatching the book he was reading from his hands when she discovered he was paying zero attention to what she was saying, and had chased him around the block, book in hand, ready to strike. But that was then. Wonwoo’s fire seemed to burn more fervently than it had six months ago.

But he just sighed, shook his head, and rose towards them, letting Siyeon slide in his place, and put a hand on Minji’s shoulder. “You, have so much of my respect”

It took Siyeon a second. In the middle of all the chaos, she’d forgotten that Minji had gone under before. Although Minji was Batch XVI, she had gone under for two months with the Batch XIV’s six years ago, something about it being an “experimental trip” and “not wanting to risk too many of their front line agents”. Being the accelerated pupil, she and a handful of Batch XV’s were temporarily promoted. The topic didn’t exactly come up much, whenever she asked, all the replies they would get were “I can’t explain what doesn’t make sense”. Minji’s mission had been particularly weird however, given that she and the batch XV’s had been sent purely as observers, for all the agents in batch XIV had been male. There was a special little twist to the simulations flare, in that it worked differently upon the biological genders. Males had no memory other than the simulation, whereas females had every idea. Annoyingly eligible female agents were less common.

Minji’s eyes went wide.

Oh.

“Was it just you?” Minji asked, softly. Siyeon was too frozen shocked to even gasp, she just blinked, wondering what other sharp arrow of fate was to hit her next.

He nodded.

“What were they like?”

Siyeon knew there was nothing she’d be able to bear worse, her heart ached. It ached because she didn’t understand, because it didn't make a mistake. It ached because just thinking about the answer harrowed her out inside.

Wonwoo broke all eye contact, and instead sat down onto the bed behind him, next to a stirring Jihoon. “Different, some more than others”

Siyeon followed his eyeline to exactly where she’d anticipated it to be.

Her last memory of Kim Mingyu before he had gone under, he had dragged everyone down to the playground , adamantly refused to let anyone even frown, if you frowned you’d end up with ice cream on your face. Everyone was pretty somber, the atmosphere hung in the air over them like a weight, and with everyone refusing to make eye contact it was pretty entertaining to hear Junhui’s shriek of disgust when he felt the cone shoved elegantly onto his hair. Hell, literally the last image she’d had of him was the very awkward enthusiastic thumbs up that he’d flashed her and Yoobin through the shutters window. He’d always been like that, loud in every aspect of life possible. With his gigantic demeanor, overall high volume and pretty much everything as a person, he was just so loud, taking up most of the space in any given moment, you didn’t ever not notice him.

Which is why Siyeon was so bewildered to see him sitting straight up in his bed, his hands wrapped around his legs. She just hadn’t seen him, hadn’t noticed despite being in her line of vision, and she wondered if a little bit of him had died.

Because he looked haunted.


	3. What a lovely start to the day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably add that the simualtion sevemteen were in is based on the call call call mv

Yoobin couldn’t quite say that she missed waking up to sunlight. Perhaps it was down to the fact that her memories of it were limited, having not felt that warmth on her back for years, but Yoobin remembered everything from then. She didn’t remember faces, or songs, but she remembered what mattered. She remembered sitting on her windowsill while her family slept, gazing up at the stars embroidered upon the night sky. The sun was confusing, it leaked in through the curtains, took away her stars, made her eyes seal shut. Nightshade, that was where she belonged. With the lights still bright, but in the way that enticed her, made her want to dance, bask in their hue forever. The city just made her want to run, and to never tire. It was just so fast, everything as it whirred around her, she ached to catch up. Even people who quake at the thought of darkness thrived here, the stygian abyss that it lay on made illuminated is lights even brighter. This was home, so busy, so bright and so loud. Despite all that it ripped from her, she would love it forever. 

She loved to wake up to it, for some reason it made her feel peaceful, she would smile and stare out of her top window for a bit, gazing at the streets letting the cool air swarm her. That was how she liked to wake up anyway, she definitely didn’t like having her shoulders gripped and shaken more vigorously than a magnitude 9 earthquake.

“Get the hell up, everyones’ been called out!” 

Ah Handong, known to some as a gentle soul. Yoobin disagreed heavily, seeing as the girl was currently straddling her with absolutely no regard for the fragility of Yoobin’s own poor legs. 

“Shits going down! And we have fifteen minutes to get there so you better get your ass up and into some clothes or so help me I will drag your disheveled ass there in your nightwear!” 

“You may want to remove yourself from me for me to be able to do that” 

“You better be quick.” She ordered Yoobin, who finally felt sweet release as Handong finally clambered off of her, instead electing to stare at her from beside to bed, eyes sterner than she’d ever seen them. 

“Are you planning on watching, dongie dearest?” 

She didn’t flinch. 

“Get. Changed.” 

Given the fact that tine was apparently ready to torpedo them, Yoobin decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and adopt a state of haste. She didn’t bother changing her top, for practical reasons and also surprisingly someone’s eyes burning holes into you while you changed gave a little feeling of unease, pulled on a pair of trousers, grabbed the nearest jacket and scraped a brush through her hair a total of once. 

She reached for her satchel, hoping that she hadn’t been an idiot and left anything vital like her phone or id out on the floor, and beamed up at the still very paranoia induced angry Handong. “Dressed for the ball, shall we depart?” She held her hand out, and when Handong simply let out an aggravated sigh, grabbed Handong’s own and sped down towards the elevator. Only a 67 floor ride. 

“We have a good two minutes stuck in here, and if I can ignore the crushing feel of my eardrums slowly ripping themselves apart, you have time to explain to me what on earth is so imminent” 

She sighed, because a stressed Handong only knew that end of the spectrum of emotions. 

“Nobody is really sure, systems are down.” 

“We’re in a working elevator.” 

“That’s the thing, only some of them are. It’s not a source problem, only particular things are failing. That’s what the alert said anyway.” 

Yoobin frowned. “I didn’t get an alert, those things are way too loud, there’s no way I slept through one of those.” It was true, there had been a theft of an artifact the previous year, and the alert that had gone through the speakers that were located right next to agent’s pillows at two in the morning had been a lovely surprise that Yoobin felt was an attack on their agent’s lives. Surely that was fatal to some. 

“It only went through the south dorms, then it cut out. All methods of communication just stopped working.” 

She glanced out of the window. Her city still shone, but she felt it bleed, someone had cut it. 

Suddenly the daggers being fired from Handong’s breath resonated with her. Panic maybe was called for. Unfortunately they didn’t have the luxury of panicking,as they doors opened and they hurried into the awaiting shuttle marked _ XVI.  _

They found two others already strapped in, a comforting sight to see that Bora was even less appropriately dressed than Yoobin. She wasn’t sporting any pajamas, but her bright orange leggings and a t- shirt that read “why get over me when you can get under me” look didn’t really scream work appropriate. The fashion icon herself was also fast asleep on Yoohyeon’s shoulder, who gave the two of them a rather defeated expression. 

“Should we wait for the other two?” 

“I haven’t the faintest idea where they are, I tried their dorms, and they weren’t there.” Handong snapped, hitting the button to her right, and they were on their way. 

Yoobin felt a little miffed she hadn’t been the priority, she would have more time to change, maybe without the audience. 

It was a little bit worth the whole situation to see her commander’s face when they arrived. 

“Girls, excellent you’ve made it-” She trailed off a little when her eyes landed upon Bora. The temptation to laugh was so very taunting as she glanced over at Yoohyeon, who seemed to share similar sentiments, but who also wacked her subtly on her arm. Ouch. 

“Minji and Siyeon aren’t here?” Handong asked, her arms held behind her back in a facade of respect. Those hands also happened to subtly be flipping Yoobin off. How very charming of the gentle one. 

“They’re down at the bay, and we have no contact.”

On a scale of bad shit to happen, this fell off the edge into an incredibly deep lagoon. The commander informed them that the supervisors office, incase of emergencies like this was apparently also offline, which basically meant that their entire operation was in the hands of whomever was responsible. 

“Why hasn’t a shuttle been sent?” 

“Whenever we try and send one down it immediately stops functioning. The power cuts have been rather erratic and random.” 

Yoobin glanced over to the shuttle ports, watching a batch XVII attempt to get into a shuttle port, only to hear a loud bleep, and all lights upon the shuttle shut off violently. The commander could say what she wanted about it being random, but Yoobin saw something else. The system was not breaking, it was fighting. What had happened is that boy had been rejected by it, thrown out. “This isn’t for you.” It seemed to spit out. 

It occurred to Yoobin, that if it hadn’t been for that boy, then who was it for? It wasn’t that Yoobin exactly trusted her instincts, it just happened that whenever they had an inkling they basically just grabbed her body's reins regardless of the fight she attempted to put up, it was rather futile. So, suddenly she was drowning out her commander's words completely and her legs began to stride towards the shuttle pods, entering the coordinates. The door slid open. It welcomed her. 

But the doors did not close, not even when she entered. 

She grinned out of the gap, gesturing to her teammates while her commander gaped. 

“Well get in then, they’re our batch aren’t they?” 

Yoohyeon and Handong turned towards their commander. “This is the first time that’s worked” 

They seemed to accept that as approval, and Handong, looking somehow angry and marvelled at the same time slid in beside her, followed by Yoohyeon and a somehow still partially asleep Bora. 

Their commander nodded at them. “Keep checking your phones, those lines are not yet completely dead, and given the circumstances, you are permitted to keep them with you.” But when she got too close, the doors slammed shut, and off they sped. 

Yoobin smiled at the shuttle, at the system or the city, she rather liked how the feeling of being chosen rested upon her shoulders. 

****************

Wonwoo had hated every second of being under. He remembered with an ironic laugh the moment beforehand. Thinking that the next thing he knew he’d be in the same bed, maybe with some more memories, but it would feel like not even a second would pass. That had sounded terrible enough, but he’s always thought the girls had it so much worse, being aware. 

He hadn’t expected the next thing he saw to be him on a couch, wearing a ridiculously patterned leather jacket, listening to Jihoon in deep conversation with a man he had never seen in his life. 

His own friends looked at him with hatred. They fired at him, they sneered, they plotted against them, loathed him, looked upon him and the others like they were the excrement residue scraps latched onto a toilet bowl. And those that didn’t hate him hated them. Minghao wouldn’t even say Mingyu’s name, like it tasted so sour it made his lips bleed. And he led them. He was supposed to lead this spread of hatred. To breed it. 

He hated that the best company he got was from someone he knew wasn’t real, was just something that a computer had come up with. That felt and looked so genuine, how could a computer make someone like that up. How did a computer have the humour, the compassion or the overwhelming horniness that Jeonghan had. It was just another punch in the gut to smile at what might as well have been a heap of binary. 

He had his friends back now, didn’t he? He had them back in pieces. Maybe what he had had was a blessing, at least he knew who he was....well maybe more so than they did. What did he have? 

He had Minghao sobbing into Siyeon, gone through the process of being shot, of dying and waking up without a wound, only with the knowledge that his best friend had shot him. He had Seokmin, unable of speech as he continued to empty what else could possibly be left inside his stomach onto the floor, remembering god knows what, probably with no clue where he was. He had Mingyu. 

The name was still drenched in hatred. Not his own, he didn’t think. But how could he tell. When someone you trust becomes that, it feels like betrayal. It's not him, it's not him could be repeated again and again in his head all he tried. But when things are repeated that much they begin to sound manufactured, weird and wrong. 

Wonwoo couldn’t even look at him. He felt more guilty than he’d ever felt in his life. But he couldn’t. 

“He’s not looking at you either.” Minji whispered, so quietly the wind might not have heard. It didn’t even sound like it was directed at him, it just sounded so mundane, like an observation, shaken to the core with shock. 

He would not cry. 

So he just sat in silence, accepting Minji’s occasional pats of comfort, listening to the sound of his friends stir, of Minghao’s cries, of Seokmin’s retches. That was until the doors opened and the rest of his batch poured themselves into the room. 


	4. Are you dead if you never bled?

Irony was such a sick bastard. 

Gahyeon had been six maybe, when she discovered that she couldn’t scream anymore. Her mother’s hand had left hers for a second, and she’d been idiotic enough to wonder into the woods behind the stables, enthralled by how vibrantly the green leaves glowed under the April sun. Minutes past, and she began to cry, to sob, and yell for help, but it sounded as if nobody was coming, so she opened her mouth to scream, for she knew her scream was loud. 

And nothing came out. She paused, forgetting her isolation and her tears for a moment, just to try again. Silence, only the rasping of her throat attempting to get the noise out. Seconds later she was found again, her mother scooped her up in her arms while she cried, but not of her apparent abandonment, but of her newfound loss. Her brother had scoffed at her, when she’d tearily knocked on his door, claiming she just wasn’t trying hard enough. Princesses weren’t supposed to scream anyway. 

She hadn’t realised how much the action came into her life in her early years, it had been how the infant princess had let the wet nurses know she was hungry, or that she required attention for the ailments in her stomach, before she had developed speech. 

Eventually, when she was seven, when a spider had crawled its way up her sleeve and no screeches occured, Yeonhui had started to believe her, after a series of investigations that involved jumpscares using an array of props, and finding to proof of an actual scream, but the terror was sufficiently there. 

The next thing, she didn’t notice right away. Sometimes she’d notice out on her horse that her occumpieient couldn’t hear her over the winds, but she had brushed it off due to the prevailing gales that swarmed. And occasionally, the ladies wouldn’t hear her in the morning sunrise when they came to awaken her, that it was okay to enter. She was nine when she noticed properly, having ran up a tree with Yeonhui to see how far away they could see, or how far away people could be and still hard their voice carry, when the villages turned at his shouts, but carried on their day no matter how hard she felt she was belting. 

Her attendants told her they could hear her just fine, maybe her lungs weren’t strong enough, and didn’t carry enough capacity to fully shout, but as long as she wasn;t favoured to the battlefield, it wouldn’t hinder her. That didn’t thread properly in her mind, she knew that she used to be able to, she could drown out the sound of her stupid brother with ease in her earlier years. Her mother would just give her a kiss on her head softly and tell her to not get worked up, her brother shrugged and her father laughed and tickled her chin, and Gahyeon failed to see the humour in the scenario. Even her aunt seemed to brush it off, and Gahyeon felt rather offended. 

She was twelve when her mother sat her down in the armoury, and handed her a dagger. It had been molded to fit around her hands and her hands alone, and yet when her mother presented it, there was no blade to be seen. It was simply a garnet hilt lying flat in her palms, and yet when Gahyeon shakily took it from her mother’s hand, a silver blade sprouted abruptly from its top, the second Gahyeon’s hands even grazed it. 

“This is for your own protection, I want it to be on you always.” 

“Why?”

“Because darling.” She explained sofly, caressing the side of her face lightly, “Someone is trying to steal your voice.” 

Gahyeon didn’t pretend to be shocked. She had known her voice no longer even carried, and could barely be heard from the next room anymore, sometimes she felt she’d been screaming loud enough to wake the eastern mountains, and Yeonhui would say he couldn’t hear what she was saying, only being 20 metres away. Her throat did not ache, her lungs did not feel tight, or her mouth dry, the physicians had never found any faults in their monthly assessments that were so grueling. And voices had been stolen from girls before. 

It was often sirens. Sirens who would murder fair voiced maidens, taking their voices as their prise to lure their homesick beaus into the rocks, who were convinced thier beloveds were calling out to them, only to find feral nymphs the last sight they saw before they were plunged into the ocean, never to breathe again, who would feast on their hearts, ripped from their dead chests. But Gahyeon had no fated one, at least not yet, and she had first noticed the absence in her very early years, too early to lure any sailors, and mainly she was still very much alive. 

It was most commonly witches, or the halflings. Witches who had been pushed and swayed into darkness, choosing to use their gifts in unconventional ways. Halflings were more likely. They were not gifted, they were just the lost ones who had their souls so full of bitterness and hate, they became a breeding ground for the blackness, giving them raw power to invoke wrath on those they pleased. She hadn’t known anyone she could anger so dreadfully, so the likelihood lay upon the real witches, who controlled the power, rather than the halflings whose borrowed power would control them. And it was that that caused the fear to dance in her mother’s eyes. The halflings' energy would just burn out, themselves with it if they got too carried away, but a witch’s spell would last far longer than her last breath. If her voice was being stolen by a witch, she would eventually never speak again. 

The question was why. Why would her voice be of use to a witch? Or even to a siren? Most girls who had their voices stolen were usually murdered one way or another, but they didn’t have an entire legion of guards to protect her.

But that was what her life was to become now was it? Under constant protection? Forever clutching her blade, for fear of letting it go and the vulnerability that accompanied it. 

By the time she turned sixteen her voice was barely above a whisper, and the public yearned to see their beloved princess in public once more, blissfully unaware she could no longer address them, her only confidants those who leaned in close to her ear, and even then having those lean so close sent a shrivel of terror pulsating through her, anyone who stood that close had the power to take her life as well as her voice. 

She missed her laugh, by now it just sounded like a faint cough. It made her appear sickly, weak, dainty and fragile. It didn’t matter that she could run for hours without slowing her pace, or that she could outlast her eighteen year old brother when they pulled themselves up from the banisters. No attempts had even been made at her life, no witches had even glanced in her direction, nor had they been seen in the lands surrounding the palace in what was soon to a century. 

When was someone going to come for her? Was she simply a misplaced spell that had been unfortunate to find her instead of its target? And she had wasted her life living in dread? It would occasionally occur to her that she was wasting away just as much as her voice was, roaming around the palace, bags under her eyes heavier than any anchor, hallowed by the nightmares that had been her curse since childhood. 

Her kingdom was not a pacifist one. There was a reason her aunt was called the wolf of the battlefield, by her subjects and those in the rival lands that were wary of her strategic intelligence and blatant confidence. And yet Gahyeon could not even lead the soldiers that were sworn to her leadership for her silence was a hurdle to victory they couldn’t afford to risk jumping. She would stare blankly at the grey windows and wait for the cavalry to return, seeing Yeonhui and the Queen riding proudly at the front, beaming with the news of victory and newfound territory. She knew that with victory came enemies, but witches surely didn’t mingle themselves in things as trivial as political warfare? 

She spent her eighteenth birthday waving, smiling and holding back her silent screams, for the princess had become fully mute. Everyone just kept telling her she was beautiful, a sentiment she vaguely appreciated but it was just barren. They called her beautiful for it was the only quality anyone could gather from her anymore. A lack of conversational skills really seemed to dampen everyone's impression seeing as they had no insight into her actual personality or her opinions, she was just some beautiful shade of a girl. 

She did have her favourite guard, who always wore his armour even in the hottest of summer days. But he was her favorite for he talked to her. The general idea among guards was to just reply when spoken to, but given the circumstances Gahyeon was unable to prompt any conversation, so he just let his words flow out without care for rank or her title. Princess Gahyeon, the supposed 2nd in line to the throne. He told of the villages and the life that those outside the palace walls lived, of the evening feuds the royal guard would have over the remnants of the alcohol or the possession of some neighbouring noble girls convenient;y lost handkerchief. And while he talked, she would paint his armour. A scarlet snake circled over his ankles, and vines full of foregn fruit hung from his shoulders. 

She begged him to let her paint his actual skin, again and again until finally he caved and took off his metal glove, letting her draw a simple dove in the inside of his wrist, that she would absentmindedly trace over every day. 

The seventh day of the summer solstice following her birthday was the day the fortress fell. She stood firm in the west tower, hands curled firmly around the blade her mother had given her six years ago, her last gift before the virus took her, shielded by a wall of her guards. Powerless to stop the flames that rippled through the east wing. Powerless to do anything to assist the wounded. Powerless to send her guard to send aid to anyone but her, for they were sworn to her protection by blood oath. Powerless to yell out to her brother, ask if he’s safe. If he’s still alive, if his life hadn't been taken by the forigen soldiers ransacking the castle, or by the flames that burned it. 

The soldiers fell like leaves at the simple wipe of a sword. Their armour clanging against each other, blood spreading to her feet in a flood, the red liquid causing the simple white dove to run down the motionless bare hand that lay in front of her. 

Then they came for her, three of them, faces masked. She did not fight, nor did she yield. Her voice had abandoned her when she may have needed it most, so she simply stared at the man in the eye as he raised his sword, ready to strike. 

Maybe she was ready, maybe she wasn't, but when it neared her chest, her body vanished, a few wisps and then it was gone, disappearing from her site, or that of the soldiers forever. And then for the first time in over a decade, the castle walls echoed with the sound of her scream. 

There had never been nothing more ironic, having her voice hacked away all her life, to be reduced to nothing else in her downfall. She knew she could see, see the walls rebuilt over the centuries, new nobility claiming the castle and letting their children settle and grow within its stones. But there were no eyes to see this, no skull to encase those eyes, and yet she still saw. No sound would rattle if she ran down the corridors, for there were no feet, no hands to graze on a fall. 

But she had her voice. The only phantom of Lee Gahyeon that was granted permission to roam the earth. And she could be heard. But she was never really heard. 

It didn’t matter if they were the descendants of those that had burned and stricken her family to the mud, Gahyeon’s favourite place would be the nursery.

Maybe she liked to protect, instead of being protected. Her scream had proved useful one night, a baby who had lungs too weak to cry stirred in its sleep, and there was an overwhelming silent sound in Gahyeon’s non-existent ears that something was so very wrong. She screamed instead, and the maid came running, giving it some magical concoction that seemed to fix the child. 

Or maybe it was that sometimes the children would talk to her, too young to shy away, tell her of their days, the small problems that plagued their mind like their distaste for etiquette, or not understanding how many individuals could enjoy the taste of the spring wild berries. In return she’d tell them the tricks of the walls, the passages that her servants had once used, forgotten a century ago, where to hide if they didn’t fancy their daily teachings. 

But Gahyeon’s concept of time was so lucid, it just slipped so quickly and she was powerless to catch it. She’d sigh, and accidentally sleep. Or stop. She just stopped. Then she’d wake again, a couple of years could have past, and if she called out to the children that had once excitedly laughed back at her, they would tremble, run into the arms of parents and whisper their fears of the ghost. 

Ghost. Poltergeist. Apparition. Spirit. She thought those titles didn’t suit her head, she wasn’t dead, was she? How could you be dead if you never even bled? She liked to think herself a cursed, special kind of immortal being. Helped her stop going completely insane. 

She would hear secrets, and she’d sometimes tell them too. The hungry hands of the less fortunate that grabbed the treats that lay on the kitchen tables went unspoken. But the crown prince leaving the quatres of what was definitely not his fiancee’s room in the early hours of dawn, that would get around. She’d whisper it into the ears of a maid, quiet enough she could think it one of her own thoughts, maybe she’d tell the footman, who might mention it to a guard, and soon every knight would know. A small amount of glee burned in whatever soul she had remained when the lady would plunge her knee into unsavoury places, and he winced in agony. 

A friend, however, was impossible. Even if anybody was willing, not thinking themselves insane, or her a ghost, everybody’s lives flickered out like flames in comparison to hers. Nothing was constant but herself. 

Except, there was one. She’d been lonely for maybe three centuries, she could not count before suddenly, suddenly someone heard her, someone who wasn’t a child, someone who wasn’t scared. Someone asked her name. Nobody had asked her that before. 

He wasn’t there all the time, he flitted in out, she’d go a few years and there he’d be again, always as someone else. Sometimes as a knight, sometimes even a prince, sometimes just a visitor. She never cared, because there was no point to her voice if there was nobody to listen, and he listened. 

Gahyeon looked from the window, staring down at the moat. It still looked as it hand when she was little, she had fallen in one day, had to be fished out by the guards, running her dress as it dripped with algae. 

“Not causing any trouble this time, huh?” 

“You’ve been a while Jeonghan”

“I know, I’m sorry. I found what I was looking for.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something a bit different! Promise it ties in :3


	5. Chapter 5

Agents were supposed to be fully employed and active until the age of fifty. There were only 3 possible routes to avoid this. 1. Be so terribly traumatised by a simulation that it renders you literally socially inept. 2. Extreme health complications. 3. Past the age of 30, choosing to conceive children with a fellow agent, preferably from your batch, the both of you would be dismissed of duty with the hope that your offspring may carry your genes. Apparently there was a 20% chance, or something similar.

Minji was so thankful for the latter, because it meant that she had never been truly alone. Being the first agent in the new batch, a year before Siyeon would arrive, Minji, freshly plucked from her family, could have withered away. But, because they were so hopeful, they forced all those children of agents into that nursery. She didn’t remember all of them, some of them just clearly never were eligible and stopped appearing in her life, some of them were siblings of her friends, but there were three that stuck.

Seungcheol’s parents seemed genuinely enamoured by one another, eager to start a family. Soonyoung’s parents were friends who made an agreement because they hated being agents themselves. Bora had been a complete accident that her parents decided to make the best of. It didn’t matter. She was frozen, and they melted her.

Minji had been eleven when she thought that was everyone. The imports of the dreamers had reached its peak, and after nobody came for a year after Seokmin’s arrival, they all assumed it was just the seventeen of them, and so they lived that way, for three years. Three years until Joshua. The average age was 8, and nobody usually tended to arrive after 9. Joshua had been 12.

They were always scared when they arrived. Who wouldn’t be, forced from your family, told that you’re important , that the fate of the souls of the world depended upon you and your ability to dream? With the bright lights of the city, that blared and blurred your vision, with the tests that were thrown at you, like you were radioactive or something. But Joshua was more than scared, he looked displaced. Everything was alien to him, he shielded himself away from everyone, like if he looked in their eyes he’d be blinded. He would sometimes sit with the rest of them, look like he was listening, but he never spoke. The first time he spoke was after four months, and it took 2 years before he spoke normally, and from then he was one of them, unrecognisable from the boy who had shrunk away in fear if they extended a hand. And then there were eighteen.

What were they now?

They were herself and Bora attempting to coach speech from Seokmin’s mouth as opposed to vomit, they were Wonwoo and Mingyu refusing to face one another, they were Siyeon letting her clothing be drenched in Minghao’s tears, everyone of his silent screams punching Minji in the back, they were Soonyoung’s confused yells, not fully out of the dream, looking at Minji like she was alien to his eyes, Jihoon exactly the same. They were Yoobin trying to make sense of whatever Junhui was mumbling into Chan’s side, who simply stared blankly.

Handong and Yoohyeon had it the best it seemed, dealing with the least scarred. Seungkwan and Seungcheol with fading memories of whatever occurred, Joshua with absolutely none, and Hansol who had somehow figured out he was in a simulation by the strange singing that he could occasionally hear, Minji guessed that he had Siyeon to thank for that.

There was a little bit of Minji that wanted to run. Run from everything. Leave everyone behind, nothing was ever going to be like it was now was it, she couldn’t just mold everything to how it would fit together. She wanted to never have anyone look at her again like Soonyoung just had, leave, run. Run home, if she even remembered where that was. You cannot rebuild a shattered glass, you may never even find every piece. But she wouldn’t. She would never. What she needed was to sleep, and Siyeon needed it too.

Luckily, Wonwoo appeared to have taken notice of such, and pried Minghao from her. “I’ve got it, don’t worry, sleep, both of you.”

Siyeon looked hesitant, but Minji grabbed her hand, pulling her to the nearest free bed, Joshua’s it looked like. “Lie down, just for a second.”

She obliged, however begrudgingly, her eyes falling shut the minute they landed on the mattress, Minji curling up beside her, dreaming of fond impossibilities.

“Jeonghan?” Joshua repeated, having knocked over a monitor, clumsy idiot.

“Yes Jeonghan, you’re telling me you don’t even remember that from the simulation?"

Hansol definitely remembered.

_“Shua are you planning on showing up for breakfast because you know all to well that I will eat your waffle if you don’-”_

_But Hansol stopped dead in his tracks, finding himself quite incapable of speech, thought or movement._

_Because, in response to his hollering, Joshua had not opened the door._

_No, in his space, was a small towel carrying Yoon Jeonghan._

_The thing that was especially alarming about that is the fact that Yoon Jeonghan was a member of the Centaurs, and the four of them had a pretty adamant code of not even talking to either the Centaurs or the Cygnets, lest they get involved in their ferocious blood feud._

_“No-one in the shower then?”_

_Hansol could scarcely gape in response._

_“Don’t worry- Ill be quick”_

_You would probably do an embarrassed cough if you were to look upon the scene yourself. Three very wide mouths, able only to stare at one another, the silence sounding like a siren, words themselves forming even from the distinct lack thereof, granted most of the words were some variation of ‘fuck’ with the occasional ‘whatthe’ thrown in for jest. It was silent, until the screaming of their shower turning and for the love of christ, was the bastard SINGING?_

_It took a number of minutes for Hansol to compose himself and the second he did, well when he regained control of his limbs, it seemed he had done so in unison with Junhui and Chan, and the three of them all clumsily flew into Joshua’s room like a herd of drunk gazelles._

_Joshua Hong, aged twenty four sat hugging his knees- which were concealed by a thankfully opaque sheet- looking about everywhere but their faces._

_“What the everloving FUCK did you do?” Chan screamed._

_“What he very clearly DID is currently singing the sound of music soundtrack in our bloody shower!” JUnhui snapped, any chance of calmness left within him showing itself out hurriedly. Joshua scrunched up his nose, as if he hadn’t been present and was as disgusted as the others._

_“In my defence, I don;t think that any of you are as emotionally disturbed by this as I am-”_

_“YOU. SLEPT. WITH. THE ENEMY.” Chan yelled, whacking Joshua’s shoulders with the nearest book with every syllable._

_“HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE MARIAAAAA”_

_“He isn’t exactly the enemmmyyyy” Joshua argued sheepishly,_

_“HOW DO YOU CATCH A CLOUD AND PIN IT DOWNNN”_

_“Okay but he IS an asshole obsessed with that red leather jacket that all of us are supposed to stay the hell away from! We don’t want to be caught in the middle again!” Jun groaned._

_“HOW DO YOU FIND A WORD THAT MEANS MARRIAAAA”_

_“Yeah he did kind of come with a proposition about that-”_

_“A FLIBBERTIJIBBET! A WILL-O’THE WISP! A CLOOWNNNNN”_

_“I am not listening to this.” Jun interrupted. “You’re blinded by lust.”_

_“FUCK ME WHATS THE NEXT LYRIC?”_

_“Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her?” Chan called out in response, before his horror at his action dawned on his face as Junhui jabbed him in the ribs._

_“THANKS- MANY A THING SHE OUGHT TO UNDERSTANDDDD”_

_“I mean he can sing.” Chan admitted ._

Siyeon woke up to the loud clang of a monitor falling over, her and Minji both bolting upwards. Minghao was perched on the bed next to her, grabbing her shoulder as she did so. “Go back to sleep.” He smiled weakly, sounding a little bit more like himself.

She shook her head, rubbing her eyes. “I think I’m okay.” She smiled back as Joshua and Hansols voices filled the room.

Joshua twitched. “I don’t remember anything from the simulation.”

That happened occasionally, in the same way you could wake up sure that you did dream ,but with absolutely no idea what, it was common, less and less so with each batch, but it happened.

“Yeah, but like surely you’d remember...I mean…”

“Remember what?”

“Uhhhhhhhhh, I mean it wasn’t like I was present at the time but I am pretty sure that you guys-”

Minji shuffled beside her. “Did you just say Jeonghan?”

That name again. Joshua twitched once more. Hansol nodded.

“He-he was in the simulation I was in last year.” She explained, looking more confused than Siyeon had ever seen her. “I got lost and separated from the batch, middle of a forest, and he was there, gave me directions and walked me back until we found them again, I didn’t think much of it, just thought he was another simulated person- but that's a completely different world? The stock characters are different for every one aren't they?”

Joshua twitched again. Hansol nodded. “I thought so, but they- I don’t know he didn’t seem like he wasn’t real. I don’t think a computer is that flirty.”

“What-what did he look like?” Joshua asked.

Maybe that was it, just a similar name, it’s not like the computer was overly creative, probably just a repeat of a name. The stock characters, as they called them, were what they presumed, imitations of those that had touched the objects before they fell into their world. That was their excuse anyway, nobody really knew, names were punched in at random and voila.

“Oh he had this red leather jacket that I don’t think he ever took off- I mean it was probably taken off when- never mind- I guess he was pretty good looking, middle parting, reddish hair, shorter than me, taller than shua.” Hansol rambled “OH! He had this tattoo of the sky, a yellow sky on his neck!”

Joshua twitched. “The guy was blond for me, no jacket, but same tattoo.” Minji replied.

“I told you he was real” Minghao whispered beside her.

Joshua twitched.

“So what is he? A glitch or something?” Minji asked.

Wonwoo shook his head, apparently having heard the whole conversation. “I don’t even think it's that. When he talked to me, it was like he knew, Like he knew that none of it was real as much as I did, and that he knew I knew it. He never said as much, but- god I don’t know."

“No-” Minji interrupted, nodding. “I know exactly what you mean. I thought I was just freaked out, but the way he talked-”

“When he got shot-” Wonwoo continued, a thousand thoughts running across his face a second. “Like, he was clearly in a fuckton of pain, but he didn’t seem too worried about the whole death thing. He said that it didn’t matter, and to find him under the yellow sky. I assumed that he was just pumped through with fake adrenaline and talking shit.”

“What does he mean, the yellow sky?” Siyeon found herself asking, feeling terribly like she was the only one that didn’t understand, well, understood the least.

“No clue.” Minji sighed.

“Neither.” Wonwoo shrugged.

Joshua twitched.


End file.
